


American monster

by Ischa



Category: Lost Souls - Poppy Z. Brite, Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Crossover, Disturbing Themes, Dreams, Gen, M/M, Minor Character Death, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-14
Updated: 2012-03-14
Packaged: 2017-11-01 22:54:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/362166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ischa/pseuds/Ischa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Damon is haunted by a summer day years ago. </p>
<p>
  <i>“What's your name?” <br/>The boy swallows. The air seems to stand still. There is no noise. The only thing Damon can hear is the boy's heartbeat. <br/>“Ghost,” the boy whispers. <br/>Damon leans in and kisses the top of his head. “That's a fitting name,” he whispers back and lets go. <br/>Ghost exhales slowly and Damon takes another step back. He could be tempted to snap his neck after all. He can't be called stable at all right now.  </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	American monster

**Rating:** R  
 **Summary:** Damon is haunted by a summer day years ago.   
_“What's your name?”  
The boy swallows. The air seems to stand still. There is no noise. The only thing Damon can hear is the boy's heartbeat.   
“Ghost,” the boy whispers.   
Damon leans in and kisses the top of his head. “That's a fitting name,” he whispers back and lets go.   
Ghost exhales slowly and Damon takes another step back. He could be tempted to snap his neck after all. He can't be called stable at all right now. _  
**Warning(s):** death of children   
**Author’s Notes:** Damon/Lost Souls crossover, this has a desperate, broken, searching Damon and lacks the snark and sarcasm of other Damon-centred stories. The lyrics are borrowed from dear_monday.   
**Word Count:** 5.646  
 **Beta:** stones_at_moons  
 **Disclaimer:** Don’t know, don’t own, not real 

\---

**One**

~+~  
There are days in which Damon wants to get up, get in the car, leave everything behind and go find Stefan. They’re rare and far in between but their sheer existence makes him angry, and it’s like he feels the need to tear something to shreds. Or someone.

He closes his eyes and breathes in and out slowly. It used to help. But if you live that long everything loses its appeal. 

He sits up and looks around his too posh, too impersonal apartment, with too much to think about in his head. He needs to get out. He needs a new car. 

~+~  
Cars are the best thing humanity came up with in the last few decades, he thinks fondly as he drives far too fast in his brand new (stolen, not that he can't afford it, but where’s the fun in buying something?) Mustang. It's a classic too. Classic, Damon thinks, suits him. 

It has a cassette deck. It's freaking charming. He pushes play and wonders what kind of person this car belonged too, because the music doesn't seem to fit the car, or any owner of a classic Mustang, he imagines. Damon listens and listens and when the tape finishes he starts it all over again. It's like the music opens doors, but Damon isn't sure he wants to see the rooms behind them. The wind is tearing at his hair and skin and he drives faster. 

It's a bit useless because he can't outrun himself, because no one can. He can't outrun his past, because he can't bear to part with it. 

The voice pulls at something in his brain, at something deep inside his guts and he nearly drives into a freaking tree as he closes his eyes to chase the feeling inside him. The car comes to a halt with the breaks screaming. He inhales deeply and takes the cassette out, looks for a case in the glove compartment. He finds it under the seat. It has a crack and the paper is stained so he can barely make out the letters on the cover, but the boy with the pale eyes and stupid hat is achingly familiar. 

_“The brain is a grey-white matter that-”_

_“It's pink, actually. The pink colour comes from all the blood our hearts, your heart,” he pokes the boy's tiny chest with his finger, right where he knows the heart is located, “pump through our bodies ever second of every day we're alive.”_

_“It's only pink when's alive then?” the other boy asks and Damon looks at him. Something fierce is sitting behind his eyes, something dangerous and helpless. Damon knows that feeling, but he guesses the kid has no idea what it is. Yet. The pale one, the pale one, Damon thinks, feeling the boy's heartbeat under his fingertip (rabbit like), knows way too much._

_“Yes, it's too delicate to mess around with when it's not preserved,” he answers._

_“You messed around with a lot of brains?” the boy asks, challenging._

_“Steve!” the pale one says quietly in warning._

_“Yeah, I did,” Damon answers with a sharp smile._

_Steve takes a step back and then when he realizes what he's done he balls his hands to fists at his sides and stares at Damon._

_They're in the middle of the woods and there is not a single soul in miles that could help them.  
Damon feels an inhale under his fingertips and looks at the pale one. He looks like a girl, but Damon knows better. _

_“Are you going to kill us?” he asks calmly._

_Steve's breath hitches. Damon knows he won't go down without a fight, but he's only a kid, human too. These kids are no match for him. Never were. Wouldn't have been even when he was still human. He cups the boy's face, a strand of his nearly white fine hair catching between his fingers, and looks him in the eyes._

_“What's your name?”_

_The boy swallows. The air seems to stand still. There is no noise. The only thing Damon can hear is the boy's heartbeat._

_“Ghost,” the boy whispers._

_Damon leans in and kisses the top of his head. “That's a fitting name,” he whispers back and lets go.  
Ghost exhales slowly and Damon takes another step back. He could be tempted to snap his neck after all. He can't be called stable at all right now. _

_“Hey!” Steve says, grabbing Ghost's hand and pulling him behind him. “Are you some kind of-”_

_“Steve,” Ghost interrupts softly, his pale fingers wrapping around Steve's tanned arm._

_“But,” Steve says._

_“It's okay,” Ghost answers leaning into Steve's back. Steve relaxes, but doesn't take his eyes away from Damon._

_Yeah, Damon thinks, this is a disaster waiting to happen._

~+~  
There are things Damon isn't proud of, not many, but they're there. There are days he doesn't know what he's been doing or where he's been, there are whole weeks of his life he can't remember or doesn't want to remember. But he remembers that sunny afternoon in the woods in the middle of nowhere. He was on a bender. Most of the time is a blur of sex, blood and alcohol. No distinct faces or places standing out. 

Except that afternoon. 

He stumbled upon the kids in a clearing. He thinks his car broke down a few hours back, but maybe he was wandering restlessly for days. As said before most of the weeks from that time are a blur.   
He puts the cassette in the case and the case in the glove compartment and rests his head on his arms on the wheel. 

He needs a fucking moment here. 

 

**Two**

~+~  
Ghost is staring out of the window facing the street while Steve is still sleeping. He's hungover because Steve drinks way too much these days. 

A leaf brushes against the glass and startles him, he stands up and steps out onto the porch. The wind has picked up. It's really chilly for early spring. He should probably wear more than just the t-shirt he sleeps in. The sun is pale, but looks friendly enough and there is a smell in the air he can't really place, but that reminds him of a summer afternoon in the woods. 

He fumbles around in the bowl on the porch they put all kinds of crap in (and the spare keys so Steve can always come in) for a pen and as he finds a pencil he takes it back inside, grabs a piece of paper (a bill) and writes: _It'll break your heart, but you'll enjoy it. I promise._ There's a melody in his head, a soft tune like leaves rustling, like blood rushing through unsuspecting veins.   
Something dark is creeping up on them from the shadows. 

~+~   
Steve looks like death washed over when he comes down the stairs. Ghost looks up, Steve mumbles something that could be a good morning or an alien language. 

“There is no coffee,” he says and hears Steve swear. 

“Why is there no coffee?”

“I wasn't by the store,” Ghost answers. 

“God damned it, Ghost! I get that you have a thing against money, but coffee is fucking essential,” he runs a hand through his hair as he wanders from the kitchen into the living room. 

“I'm sorry.”

“It's not-” Steve sighs, crossing his arms behind his neck and looking at the ceiling. “What are you writing?”

“Lyrics, I think,” Ghost answers, pushing the paper over the dirty coffee table into Steve's direction. Steve doesn't pick it up. 

“A new song?”

“Something soft and bitter. Like leaves falling in autumn.” 

Steve sighs. “Sometimes I swear it's like you aren't even real.” 

“You couldn't make me up,” Ghost answers with a smile. 

“No, I couldn't.” Steve says, but what he means, and Ghost knows that, is I wouldn't. “I'm taking the car and drive to the store for freaking coffee. Do you need something?”

“Crayons,” Ghost replies. 

Steve shakes his head. “I'll get them if they have them.”

“Thanks.” 

“Whatever.” 

~+~  
Ghost wants to explain to Steve how he sees the world, but he knows that's not possible. People, his grandmother said, don't always want to know things. Steve is definitely someone who doesn't want to know things. 

~+~  
Ghost dreams of rich green grass and summer-sun on his skin. He can feel the blades under his fingertips, tickling the backsides of his bare legs, arms and back where his t-shit rides up. He can hear the wind in the leaves, it sounds a bit like waves crashing on the shore. Like putting a shell to your ear and hearing the ocean. 

“But it's only the blood rushing through your body,” a voice says. 

Ghost heard that voice before. He dreamed about that voice before too. Always with slight fear and anticipation. 

The shadow falls over his torso, covering his heart. His fingers grab the grass in fists, his breathing speeds up a bit. He doesn't open his eyes. He doesn't need to. He can see perfectly, can see everything outside himself and inside himself too. 

“Are you coming back?” the boy on the grass asks. He is the boy, but he is not the boy. 

“You're asking yourself that for years now,” the man answers. 

Ghost can feel a kiss against his forehead, but the man doesn't move a muscle. 

~+~   
He wakes to someone banging on the door. He blinks the sleep and with it the dream away. The living room is dark. 

“Ghost for fuck's sake, are you awake?!”

Ghost gets up and opens the door. Steve s drenched to the bone. 

“What happened?” Ghost wants to know, stepping aside so Steve can come in. 

“This piece of shit that I call my car broke down again and then it started to freaking pour and then I saw that old man that always wants to talk and-” he throws his sneakers into a corner and strips his clothes in the living room, leaving them in a messy pile on the hardwood floor. “Can you get me a towel?” he asks. 

“Sure,” Ghost answers and hurries to the bathroom. “You know you should take a shower, you might get a cold otherwise.” 

“I'm not gonna-” he stops and Ghost waits, but there is only silence. He grabs the towel and goes back to the living room. Steve is standing naked at the couch, a piece of paper in his hand, his body only illuminated by the porch light. 

“What?” Ghost asks. 

Steve startles and switches the light on. “What's that?”

“I wrote it this morning while you were sleeping,” Ghost says handing the towel over. “You should take a shower, Steve.” 

“It sounds creepy, even for you. Threatening.” 

“You don't like it?”

“I don't like it,” he puts the paper back on the table and begins to towel his hair. “Maybe I'll take the shower after all,” he adds after a moment of complete silence.

Ghost nods. It's a good idea. He sits down on the floor and fingers the edges of the paper with the lyrics. He likes them. They sound sad, he thinks, but he isn't sure if Steve isn't right about them being threatening. 

“Something's coming,” he whispers, resting his head on the table top. But then, he thinks, something is always coming. 

 

**Three**

~+~  
There's an address on the inside of the cover. Damon runs his fingers over the edges and then crumbles it up and throws it over his shoulder. He won't go there. It's one thing to kill and glamour and play games with adults and a whole other thing to play with kids. Not that he didn't play with kids, Katherine would be forever seventeen after all. But that’s different. The times were different back then. When she became a vampire girls with fourteen had their own families. 

He starts the car and doesn't look back. 

He could probably find his way back to that clearing, but what for? That boy won't be there anyway, because that boy doesn't even exist anymore. 

~+~  
There are days he even feels like a sane person. He wakes up in a hotel, he has breakfast, he flirts with the girl at the reception and he goes sightseeing and shopping, he gets back to the hotel after a quick snack in an alley. 

It's okay until it becomes routine. Routine seems like a sane idea, but it makes him feel caged in. That of course is in no way a sign of sanity at all. Routine should make you feel sane, especially when you are a savage thing – and he is a savage thing, he has no illusions there. 

~+~  
The boy is maybe fifteen and living on the streets way too long, underfeed, dirty, but his face is pretty and his hair is long and pale. 

If Damon would take off his clothes (which he doesn’t), he would surely find too many scars and too thin ribs, ash-grey skin, bruises, bite marks. 

His blood tastes kind of dirty too. Not all bad, he thinks, a bit like eating something on the beach: sand always finds its way in. 

As he drinks that little boy dry he remembers Ghost's pale eyes, the way his heartbeat made Damon hungry, how he was so goddamned tempted to snap his neck in front of Steve. 

It's bliss. 

~+~  
“You're leaving a trail,” Stefan says. 

“Of all the places,” Damon answers. 

“The world is a village if you've seen it all,” Stefan answers. “And we've seen it all.”

Damon isn't going to look at him. He doesn't want to see. There are things that make him snap faster than other and Stefan, Stefan always knew how to push his fucking buttons. 

“Go find your own amusement,” Damon says. It's not the decade to deal with his brother again. 

“Little boys, really?” Stefan mocks. 

“Still not eating properly?” Damon asks, but he can smell it, can smell the not human blood on his brother. 

Stefan keeps quiet. 

Damon rolls his eyes. “Go home.”

“I wonder where that is, exactly.”

“You have Louis down to a T.,” he mocks. “Spare me your morals and melancholia.”

“Damon-”

“See you next decade,” he says and vanishes into the night. Stefan doesn't try to follow him. He probably couldn't keep up anyway. 

~+~  
But Stefan's right. He is leaving a trail of dead boys in his wake. And there are people out there that can make the connections. He should at least try to hide them. 

The thing is that this is the only thing these days that gives him a bit of peace of mind. 

No matter what Stefan might think about it. Everyone deals differently with loss and Damon, well, Damon turned into an alcoholic psychopath some seven decades ago. 

It worked for him so far. 

Why try to fix something when it's not broken, or well, when it's working? No reason at all to do something so stupid. 

~+~  
Damon doesn't look for them, but when he sees a boy that resembles Ghost he stalks his prey and plays with it a bit before he kills it. He always liked to play with his food. Even when he was still human. It used to make dad crazy. It was all the more fun for that. Dad always kind of rubbed him the wrong way. 

When he's drunk he likes to sit on the floor and fantasize how he'll kill that boy. It always comes back to snapping his delicate neck. Why, he wonders angrily, didn't he run his finger at least once down the boy's throat? To feel the pulls, feel the fear, the blood so close to the thin skin? Pushing against his fingertips. 

He remembers the smell. It's weird, when he's drunk he can nearly taste it on his tongue. Grass and boy-sweat, unwashed clothes.

~+~  
“Are you going to kill us?” the boy asks, he looks scared out of his mind and his friend doesn't look better. He's pressed against the wall like he wants to merge with it. He's not a fighter, Damon thinks. No Steve.

“No,” Damon answers, “only you.” He runs a hand down the boy's jaw, curls his fingers around his neck and pulls. The boy's eyes go wide, his breath quickens. Damon can feel the rush of blood under his fingertips. This is what he wants. He inhales the boy's scent and drags him a bit closer so he can bite down. That so delicate, tender place between neck and shoulder, where your lips brush the collarbone if you aren't careful. Sometimes Damon is, sometimes he isn't. Scrapping his teeth along the bone, feel the shiver, the pain, mixed with his own blissful pleasure of feeling alive. Just before his heart stops beating he snaps the boy's neck. Listens closely to the sound and breathes easier. One day it may be even enough. Or Stefan will have enough – not that Stefan has room to judge, Damon knows his past – and hunts him down. 

The other boy makes a noise, a helpless mindless noise, and Damon looks into his direction. He's pissed his pants. Scared out of his freaking mind. This is so disappointing. 

“You,” he says and the boy looks at him, frightful and shivering, “you won't remember my face or voice. I'm just a shadow in the alley, understand?” 

“Yes,” the boy says, nodding his head like a crazy person. 

“You won't ever forget his face,” Damon goes on, pointing to the dead boy. 

“I won't,” the boy whispers. 

“Good. Now run along,” Damon answers, releasing the boy. Maybe that boy gets it together and stops being stupid living on the streets. Damon bets Stefan would like that. 

Not that Damon cares. 

 

**Four**

~+~  
Ghost brushes his fingertips against the boy's pale skin and they stain with blood. Red and thick and alive. The boy opens his eyes, the look empty and vacant. He's dead. He moves his lips, but no sound comes out. 

Ghost wants to cry. 

He wakes up with tears running down his cheeks and buries his face into the pillow. Breathing in slowly. It smells like grass and blood. He inhales and exhales slowly, the dream clinging to his mind, not letting him go. He can still feel the blood under his fingertips. This wasn't the first time, this wasn't the first boy Ghost dreamed about either. 

They look similar: pale hair, pale skin, mostly pale eyes, too thin, somehow not quite there. Ghost knows what he is looking at. 

Someone's version of himself. 

He turns onto his back and stares at the ceiling. Watches the light dance on it. 

Deep down he knows he's save as long as he stays here, in Missing Mile, but is it fair? To let all these boys die instead of him? 

~+~  
It's not that something's coming, it's more that someone is searching and taking, but Ghost knows he won't come for Ghost. He stares into his mug of tea and tries to make a decision. 

“You alright?” Steve asks. He looks hungover again. 

“Yes,” Ghost says, because sometimes it's easier to lie to Steve. Sometimes Steve wants to be lied to. 

“You don't look it.”

“I miss the road. I want to play,” he answers and Steve's face lights up. This might be an answer, a decision then. 

“Let's see what we can do about getting out of here.” 

“Yeah.” 

Steve is whistling under his breath while he prepares coffee and Ghost smiles to himself. Maybe, maybe, he thinks, this will turn out to be a good idea after all. 

~+~  
They play small clubs here and there, mostly for a place to stay and free food, but that's okay, because they really don't need more, except cigarettes for Steve. Ghost always finds what he needs anyway, or it finds him. 

“You read that?” Steve asks one evening in New York. He tosses a newspaper on the bed they're sharing and doesn't look at Ghost. He knows, Ghost thinks. 

“I knew,” Ghost says.

“You knew? You knew that someone is killing kids that look like you used to and you-” Steve balls his hands to fists so he doesn't hit something or someone. 

“What do you want me to say?”

“Nothing, I-” he stops and sighs. “Nothing;” he repeats. 

They have another confirmed gig in Chicago and Ghost knows that Steve really wants to go, but he isn't sure that Steve will now. 

“What about Chicago?” Ghost asks. 

“What about Chicago, Ghost?”

“Are we still going?” 

Steve looks at him then, his face softens and his hands uncurl. He takes a step forward, toward the bed and then another, crouches down so they're on eye-level. He touches his forehead to Ghost's and breathes for a moment. “Yes, we're still going,” he answers. “Because it doesn't matter if we don't. This isn't going away.”

“It isn't,” Ghost confirms, hugging Steve. 

~+~  
Ghost avoids the papers after that first article Steve showed him, but he can't avoid the dreams. Not sleeping makes Steve worry and when they're on the road, the music playing quietly, the movement of the car and Steve drumming on the wheel lull him into sleep anyway. There is no escaping it.

It's the clearing, but what else could it be? The grass is green and the summer-sun hot on his skin. He can feel the soft blades at the back of his arms and legs, the patches of skin where his shirt rides up. He's breathing controlled, his chest is full with anticipation. He can't see Steve, knows he isn't here. He's alone and soon he'll be alone with the man. 

“You are coming back,” Ghost says when he feels the shadow falling over his upper body. His fingers tighten in the grass. He knows without needing to look down that his knuckles are white. 

“I'm not,” the man answers, Ghost can't see his face, his body is a big shadow against the blue sky. 

“You are,” Ghost says.

The man turns his head slightly, like he's looking for someone. “You're friend isn't here.” 

“No, this isn't real.”

“You should have stayed at home. I would never come back here.” 

“But you're calling,” Ghost whispers. 

“Am I?” he sounds really surprised Ghost thinks. 

“You are.” 

“And what makes you think it's a good idea to answer?” he asks, he's looming over Ghost and Ghost feels small and young. And he realizes that this is how this man sees him. 

“You can't keep doing this,” Ghost answers. 

“Maybe I just can't stop,” the man says, turning to look at Ghost again. “Maybe I don't want to,” he whispers leaning down, the wind picks up and Ghost opens his eyes. 

 

“You okay?” Steve asks. 

“Yeah,” he answers. “No.” 

“I thought so. Dreams again?”

“Do you remember the day in the woods?” There were a lot of days in the woods, hell there were days in the woods last summer. 

“Where the pervy guy kissed you,” Steve says. 

Ghost nods. It was his first kiss. Not a real kiss, but one that wasn't given by a relative. It somehow counts. “It's him.”

“I know,” Steve answers. 

Ghost looks at Steve's profile, his hands, the fingers gripping the steering wheel hard. Of course Steve knows. He doesn't want to know these things, but there is no way for him to be friends with Ghost and not pick up on it, Ghost knows that. 

“What are you going to do?” Steve asks after a long silence. 

“I don't know.” 

“But he's looking for you,” Steve says. 

“Maybe I'm looking for him,” Ghost whispers. 

Steve keeps quiet, but his knuckles go white around the steering wheel.

 

**Five**

~+~  
Maybe he's losing it and fast. Maybe he did lose it a long time ago. Maybe it's time to go home.   
He leans his head against the back of the bench he's sitting on and stares at the sky. Blue with small clouds, the wind is whispering in the too young leaves. He can hear it all. Always. No secrets left to discover. 

Who'd thought an eternal life would be so dull? Seems things never turn out like you imagine them to. 

The wind picks up and brings with it the smell of human life and debris. A piece of paper catches on Damon's leg. He picks it up and wants to throw it into the trash can near by when something catches his eye. 

_It'll break your heart, but you'll enjoy it. I promise._

It's written on the back of a bill. There's a long lost scent clinging to it. Green grass, wild strawberries and boy-sweat. It reminds him of summers with Stefan before they were immortal. 

Before they were these savage broken things. 

~+~  
The pain doesn't register immediately, it comes back to him like an echo. When he looks down he sees a rivulet of blood, his own blood, running down his collarbone, his chest, finding a way down his stomach, and it widens, becomes a river of red and brown and before he can scream (and he wants to scream so badly) a kiss is pressed against his forehead and he wakes up with a gasp. 

Ghost feels disoriented. He's shaking, shivering. His fingers are tangled in the cheep sheets. He can feel Steve stir beside him and makes his fingers move, so he can place a soothing hand on his back and guide him back to sleep. 

He takes short calming breaths. And lets them out slowly, closing his eyes, and listens to the night around him. 

You can only keep the things that go bump in the night at bay for so long and these things always had a way to find Ghost.

He looks at Steve and wonders how much more he can deal with. 

~+~  
Damon comes across the club by coincidence. The bill is folded neatly in his pants pocket. He takes one look at the poster announcing the bandS and pays the fee. 

The club is packed which is surprising or not. It's small enough and just the kind where no one checks the ID too closely. 

Damon keeps to himself as much as he can. He stays in the back and listens to the bands with a whiskey in his hand, waiting to hear Ghost's voice.

Damon isn't especially hungry but alcohol and too many young bodies pushing and pulling make him restless. This is a place where he used to find his prey before he went on a crazy serial killer murdering spree. 

The minute Lost Souls? take the stage, he knows Ghost knows he's there. Damon can feel his gaze on his skin. It's unsettling, but he can't really say why. After all Damon is the savage thing and Ghost is – the thing is Damon has no idea what Ghost is. 

~+~  
There are things you can run away from and then there are things that you just can't outrun. The man's face in the crowd is one of these things. Ghost knew that they would meet again. He knew it, saw it in his dreams. Saw what this man is and he's afraid, of course, but there is nowhere to run. He doesn't think the man will let him. Not this time. 

~+~  
“I saw your face on a cover of a cassette lying in a stolen car,” Damon says as soon as he sees Ghost stepping out into the back-alley.

“You know where I live,” Ghost answers. The wind is playing gently with his soft pale hair. Damon itches to drag him closer by it. 

“I think I could have found my way back to that clearing.”

“I like to spend summer afternoons lying in the grass there,” Ghost says softly, stepping a bit closer. 

“Where's Steve?” 

“Drinking with the other bands,” Ghost says, “he won't watch this time.” 

“I could make him come out here. I could make him watch,” Damon whispers, reaching out and stroking a finger down Ghost's cheek, curling his hand around his neck, strands of Ghost's long hair tangling around his fingers. 

Ghost takes another step, looking into Damon's eyes. Ghost's eyes are so pale, it's a bit unreal, Damon thinks. He can feel Ghost's breath against his skin. “I know you could,” he says, “I've dreamed about you.”

“Yeah?”

“After the first time and then when you started to call for me.”

“I didn't-” Damon stops and grins, “ah when I started killing the boys.”

“Children.” 

“It's all the same to me,” Damon answers, but it's a lie. It isn't or he wouldn't have been killing small, young blond boys for the last few months. 

“I'm not a boy anymore,” Ghost says. His lips look like the fragile insides of seashells. 

“No you're not.” There is so much he could do with this boy, to this boy, he wouldn't ever do with the kids he killed. 

~+~  
“Are you going to kill me?” Ghost asks. 

“I'm not sure yet,” the man answers, he's stroking a thumb over Ghost throat gently, like he doesn't even really realize that he's doing it. 

“You didn't kill me back then. In the clearing.”

“No, but I killed all these boys that looked like you. Too pale, too thin, too wise for their age because they've seen too much.” 

“If you could go back, would you do it this time?”

“Would you like that? Knowing that you probably would save all these innocent lives?” the man wants to know, he looks curious about it, like he really wants an honest answer. 

Ghost closes his eyes, he can't look the man in the eyes when he says this. “No.” 

The man laughs. “Of course not,” he whispers, dragging Ghost closer until their lips nearly touch. 

“Not because I don't want to die-” Ghost tries to make him understand and the man cuts him off with a soft kiss, chaste, just lips on lips and then he pulls back a bit.

“I know,” he says and Ghost believes him. “There are people we do anything for.” 

“Yes.” 

~+~  
Damon knew of course, knew it the day he saw them together, that summer evening in the clearing, with the leaves whispering in the wind and the grass soft under their bare feet.   
He knew and he recognized it for what it is. 

“We find excuses to live,” Damon whispers. 

Ghost touches his arm, grabs his elbow, his fingers are cold on Damon's skin. It's a cold night for humans he guesses. “I think,” he says softly, “it's better than finding reasons to die.”

“I'm a monster, don't misunderstand that, Ghost. I kill and I like it. I need it like I need blood to live.” 

Ghost nods. “I know. I saw you. I saw you make the boy watch. I saw you stalk and play and I saw you kill-”

“In your dreams,” Damon interrupts softly. 

“I saw you and I knew you wouldn't come for me. I knew you would never set foot into Missing Mile.” 

“And still, here we are. You came to find me.” 

“It's not that simple for me,” Ghost answers. “There are things that need to happen. We, us” he looks into Damon's eyes when he says that, “meeting needed to happen.” 

“Did you dream your death?” Damon wants to know. 

“Yes, every time you killed a child that looked like me.” 

Damon nods, it's as good an answer as any. “Will I stop after this?” 

“I don't know.” There is a silence in which Ghost's fingers tighten on Damon's arm. “Do you want to?” 

Damon drags him closer again, so their bodies touch. Ghost smells like nature, like woods and wild flowers, like all the childhood memories Damon keeps locked away, but that don't stay hidden.   
I want to go home, he thinks. 

~+~  
“Where have you been? I was – looking for you,” Steve says as Ghost sits down beside him. He rests his head on Steve's shoulder and closes his eyes, soaks up Steve's warmth. His skin feels chilled to the bone.

“Catching fresh air,” Ghost answers softly. 

Steve puts an arm around him and doesn't ask any more questions. 

Ghost listens with half an ear to the conversation going on around him, but it's about guitar riffs and he doesn't know much about that. 

He thinks about the tender place hidden by his hair where the man bit down hard, drawing blood, his lips brushing Ghost's collar bone. 

”You're haunting me,” he whispered into Ghost's flesh and it felt scorching hot, like these words could leave a mark deeper than the man's sharp teeth. Ghost wanted to press his lips to the man's so badly it hurt. The man pulled away then, his lips dragging over Ghost's skin. “And now I will haunt you.” 

~end~


End file.
